Lady Ashton takes on the parliament

A tug-of-war is underway between EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and the European Parliament. At stake is budget and oversight of the new EU External Action Service. According to the European Voice, one German member of the European Parliament fired this broadside at Ashton. Ingeborg Grässle, a centre-right German MEP who is drafting the ...

By , a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies.

A tug-of-war is underway between EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and the European Parliament. At stake is budget and oversight of the new EU External Action Service. According to the European Voice, one German member of the European Parliament fired this broadside at Ashton.

A tug-of-war is underway between EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and the European Parliament. At stake is budget and oversight of the new EU External Action Service. According to the European Voice, one German member of the European Parliament fired this broadside at Ashton.

Ingeborg Grässle, a centre-right German MEP who is drafting the Parliament’s position on changes to the financing rules, accused the EEAS of turning into a “Mexican army” with “many generals but few boots on the ground”. Grässle criticised the fact that there would be eight posts at director-general level in the service, and 73  posts at director level. She said that each director-general would only be responsible for 74 officials, contrasting the situation with the German civil service where she said an official at the same level would be responsible for more than 1,000 staff.

This report from the EUobserver today is more sanguine that a compromise will be reached. But it seems clear that the Parliament is going to keep a close eye on the new batch of European diplomats. 

David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist

Tag: Europe

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